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This chapter discusses the avant-garde or experimental bands studied. In these types of bands, Andrew Hill and William Parker deconstruct boundaries between composition and improvisation, further elevating the musical freedom of their musicians. Andrew Hill began to explore “the crack” between composition and improvisation in his earliest recordings as a leader in the 1960s. Hill also works stylistic and social boundaries, bringing together experimental musicians such as Eric Dolphy and more traditional modernists such as Kenny Dorham. William Parker, though of a later generation, was...

This chapter discusses the avant-garde or experimental bands studied. In these types of bands, Andrew Hill and William Parker deconstruct boundaries between composition and improvisation, further elevating the musical freedom of their musicians. Andrew Hill began to explore “the crack” between composition and improvisation in his earliest recordings as a leader in the 1960s. Hill also works stylistic and social boundaries, bringing together experimental musicians such as Eric Dolphy and more traditional modernists such as Kenny Dorham. William Parker, though of a later generation, was attracted to the radical avant-gardism of the Black Arts movement of the 1960s. As a youthful bassist coming up in the early 1970s, he participated in Jazzmobile classes and workshops in Harlem, and eventually went to work with the pianist Cecil Taylor.